(Note: The transcripts in this webcase are excerpted from longer classroom discussions. They are not intended for use independent of the videos which they accompany.)
Sophia: Now we are supposed to read this [the text]. (They read the Hebrew and English out loud … Reading from the havruta-guided questions.) "What happens to a group when you exclude someone?"
Eli: Maybe if you exclude someone, then the other person doesn't have anything to do so they start calling people to get out of games and then nobody has anything to do at all. Instead of just letting them join your game.
Sophia: When you exclude someone if you are playing a game in a group or you are studying, you don't have as much ideas and you don’t have a person who thinks about it that way, because each person thinks about it differently.
Eli: What should we write down?
Sophia: Do you want to write down … Let's just think for a second. When you take a person away, you don't have those ideas anymore.
Eli: So they could have had a great idea. (They write down their responses.)
Sophia: You could read this one (points to havruta guided questions).
Eli: (Reading from the havruta-guided questions) "What do the stones on the top need in order not to fall?"
Sophia: They ...
Eli: They need the stones on the bottom. So if they didn’t have the stones on the bottom, then they’d have nothing to stand on, so they'd just fall.
Sophia: They need the stones on the bottom. So if one of the stones on the bottom would go away, the whole thing would fall. So do you want to write down, "They need the bottom stones"? (Writing: "they need the …")
Sophia: (Reading from the havruta guided questions) What do you need to do as a partner or havruta so that your partner feels included?"
Eli: I think that you have to let them finish their ideas before you can just start saying
[something]. So if someone says, "This eel has some cool tentacles." And then someone says, "No, it doesn't. Oh no, that’s not cool. My eel has feet."
Sophia: Or if you are talking about real havruta. Like, remember before when we talked about Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel and, like, he would say: "I have an idea." And they would say, "Noooo." They wouldn't feel included. And if you don't take their ideas seriously and, like, you have two ideas and don't even listen to the other one, you are disagreeing with the other person's idea.
So what should we write down, because we have a lot?
Eli: How about don't …
Teacher: You can write down more than one idea.
Sophia: Can we go on the back [of the sheet]?
Eli: Don't just interrupt in the middle of their sentence. That would be our first idea. (They write down their responses.)
Sophia: And we need to listen to an idea ...
Eli: Instead, wait for them to finish their idea.
Sophia: Listen and look at your havruta and be respectful. (They write down their responses.)
Eli: So we could say if you want to disagree ...
Sophia: Do it politely.
Eli: Do it politely. (They write.)
Sophia: If you want to disagree, do it politely. (They are writing this down as they she says it.)